Some Reflections on Vastness and the Word Count by Samuel Fisher, WMQ author (October 2016) I suppose it’s safe to say that the vastness of early America is a bit of a preoccupation in these parts. Big, expansive frameworks are the norm now; that much we know. The hard part comes when we try to actually put them to… Read More
I have been Editor for over two years, and I’ve yet to publish my first issue. I don’t like to rush into things. April 2016’s issue has been out for over five months now, but that wasn’t my first issue. For those of you in the northern hemisphere, July 2016’s issue arrived in your mailbox just as the heady… Read More
Next Tuesday, October 4, 2016, we begin a new tradition at the Omohundro Institute: the annual McGiffert Lecture. The lecture series honors the late Michael (Mike) McGiffert who served as editor of the William and Mary Quarterly (WMQ) at the Omohundro Institute from 1972–1997 and also taught at William & Mary. Mike had an enormous influence on the journal, and on… Read More
In today’s post, WMQ author Michael D. Breidenbach (July 2016) reflects on the beginning and end of historical writing. by Michael D. Breidenbach An unavoidable task in historical writing is beginning and ending within particular time periods, dates, or moments. But while a published article denotes its end—the publication date—historical writing often does not admit of a beginning. The genesis of an… Read More
Today’s guest post is by Bryan C. Rindfleisch, an assistant professor of history at Marquette University. It was July 4, 2016. I found myself sitting on the curb at the intersection of Duke of Gloucester and Henry Streets, at one of the entrances to Colonial Williamsburg. I watched as families, big and small, dashed into air-conditioned stores and restaurants. Read More
by Kirsten Fischer In today’s post, WMQ author Kirsten Fischer (July 2016) delves into her relationship with Reader D and how their interaction ultimately influenced her piece. Powerful intellectual opposition to one’s ideas is a disturbing, provoking, and very useful thing. That’s what I learned from Reader D, the anonymous reviewer who went to great lengths to refute the arguments… Read More
In this week’s post, Keith Pluymers (July 2016) describes the shifts in perspective that led him to reconsider a well-worn topic and ultimately to publish his first piece in the William and Mary Quarterly. by Keith Pluymers In 2013 while on a Mellon Research Fellowship at the Virginia Historical Society, a combination of archival discovery and a fortuitous meeting with a… Read More
by WMQ Editor Josh Piker At the risk of invoking one of my many least favorite Tom Cruise movies—or, as a quick Google search informs me, what looks to be a more recent (but even more uninspired) movie based on a video game—I’d like to talk for a minute about the need for speed. Last year, I blogged about my… Read More
WMQ author Justin Roberts reflects on the unexpected route that led him to the article on British plantation management in Barbados that appears in the April issue. by Justin Roberts As I was writing my first book about British Atlantic plantation management in the late eighteenth century, I found myself burrowing back further in time with my research questions. As I… Read More
by Josh Piker It will, I suspect, come as no surprise to hear that the relationship between authors and those scholars who serve as readers for article manuscripts is an ambivalent one. I try to recruit five readers’ reports for each essay that goes out for peer review. A not insignificant part of my job consists of finding ways… Read More
Fissiparous. Centrifugal. Pluralization. A-synthetic. Comes to find that when I blog about #vastearlyamerica, my inbox fills up with fifty-cent words. Each of those words captures potential consequences of the expansive nature of our field. Fragmentation, dispersal, diversity, scale, incoherence. I’ve been hearing a lot about these topics since “Getting Lost?” was posted a few months… Read More
In today’s post, WMQ author Susanah Shaw Romney (April 2016) answers the following: “WMQ articles are capped at 10,000 words (plus notes). If you had 5,000 more words to play with, how would the article be different?” by Susanah Shaw Romney This article started out as a paper I submitted to the WMQ-EMSI Workshop on Women in Early America. The paper I wrote then… Read More
